Google Trumps Apple With Cheaper Subscription Service

Within a day of Apple announcing a new subscription based service for its iOS platform that siphons 30 per cent from publishers who sell their content from within iPad and iPhone apps, Google launched a similar service for Android that only takes a 10 per cent commission.

The Google One Pass subscription service will let content publishers offer newspaper and magazine subscriptions on Android based tablets and smartphones, allowing them to set their own prices and terms for the subscriptions.

The announcement was made by outgoing Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a speech at the Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany.

The search engine giant timed the launch of One Pass with that of Apple's platform to be seen in a favorable light by content publishers as it allows them to keep 90 percent of their revenue along with having access to consumer data. The payments will be handled by Google via Google Checkout.

In an official google blog post, the company said that some publishers had already signed up for the service including German publishers Axel Springer AG, Focus Online (Tomorrow Focus) and Stern.de. Others include Media General, NouvelObs, Bonnier’s Popular Science, Prisa and Rust Communications.

Google claim not to be making money from the venture but merely covering their costs with the 10% charge, Schmidt added, "the most important thing is to get the money to people who are producing high-quality content."